I’ve had no bread at all – although I’ve not cut out pasta or other wheaty products as such – and honestly I’ve felt no change, and seen no changes or results. I’m going to keep on with it for a while more though.

I’ve certainly eaten better at work, mainly through getting back to eating stuff I’ve made at home and taking that in, rather than paying for it on a daily basis. I do need to find a balance here still, because as a contractor, it’s better for tax purposes (don’t ask) to buy something each day.

Exercise has been the big one. I’ve been out on the bike five times, and covered fifteen miles, there being a rather nice little three-mile circuit from home that works well for me. My times have dropped noticeably already – I’m using the Strava app on the phone to track things – and we’ll see how it goes. My leg muscles in particular hurt like buggery on a couple of occasions, which isn’t surprising considering that the last time I was cycling properly was in 2005 when I worked at CrapCo. But I’ll get better, get fitter, get faster. That’s the plan, anyway.

More importantly though, I’m quite enjoying it at the moment. I’m hoping to get into the routine before the nights draw in and the weather gets worse, so that then I’ll have even fewer excuses for not going. I have missed a couple of days this week- one through vile weather, another through being busy doing other stuff – but I can live with a five-out-of-seven plan for the moment.

Just changing things round a bit. When I did food diary etc. earlier in the year, one thing I was told was to try cutting out bread. So I’m giving it a go and seeing if it makes a difference.

Honestly, I don’t expect it to – but it’s another tick off the list of things to try. I know I’m not wheat-intolerant, it’s more about food intake, calories, changing that around a bit and seeing what happens.

As it happened, last week I also didn’t have any pasta etc., so it was a complete cut-out of wheat, but still, no change. I’ll keep it up for a while, see if anything changes, but right now it’s very much a case of “Meh”, better stuff to worry about.

“As it happened, last week I also didn’t have any pasta etc., so it was a complete cut-out of wheat,”

Except that there is wheat as a (cheap) filler in an amazing number of things – just as a small example, many types of yoghurt, soy sauce, mayonnaise, ketchup, baked beans, tablets (OTC and pharma), soups, sauces… oh just don’t get me started on food pollution 😉

Herself was properly Wheat-intolerant, so we went through the whole fun of figuring out what was using wheat. (And believe me, being a wheat-intolerant veggie really does make life interesting)

I react badly to certain food colourings (mainly E102, E110 and Brilliant Blue FCF) so I’m also aware on that score, just knowing how much shit has colours added unnecessarily. The ones that always get me are the fact that 102 and 110 are used in the red gel end of capsules for medication, and both Beecham’s Lemon and Blackcurrant ‘Lemsip’ is totally off-limits for me due to the colourings.

” (And believe me, being a wheat-intolerant veggie really does make life interesting)”

I know 🙂

Plane meals are especially interesting. You can order gluten free or vegetarian, but not both. Even Business Class can’t manage it, and also manage to serve supposed gluten-free meals wheat in them, and vegetarian with gelatine in the desserts etc etc. You probably don’t recall the Qantas flight back in 2004 where I was served a chicken sandwich as a (marked) vegetarian meal and the subsequent ‘don’t give a shit’ attitude of the camp steward. These days I just take my own food and then argue with them at security as to whether I can or cannot take it on…